Fleur went back to her small office space, the one she shared with two other file clerks, and immediately unloaded the files she'd been carrying onto a desk. Neither Daphne nor Raymond, her office mates, looked up when she came in—their heads were buried deep in their filing—but she was thankful for that. She needed a moment to regroup after that encounter in the corridor. Her heart felt as if it was beating out of her chest.

She collapsed into the nearest chair and found herself completely lost in thought. Him. It was him. She knew that face—that hair, that smile—anywhere. She pulled her hand through her hair, smiling to herself as she did so. Bill Weasley. That was his full name. She'd learned it after their first encounter; not long after first setting eyes on him.

In the weeks that had followed that final task for the Triwizard Tournament, she'd actually thought about him several times—more in a daydream sort of way rather than anything serious. She'd found it useful to use those happy, pre-task thoughts of him to push the awful sight of Cedric's body out of her mind when the image tried to consume her. She wasn't sure why the idea of Bill helped, but she had to wonder if it was because he was one of the last bright, normal thoughts that she'd had before her life had changed forever.

She could remember it so clearly. Right before the third task. Before things went to shit, but after she'd seen him repeatedly throughout the day walking with Harry around the grounds. She had been at lunch, sitting with her mother and sister at one of the long house tables when she noticed him across the room with Harry and his friends. There were several other redheads who were now rushing to hug and greet Bill and the woman he was with; she wondered if they were all related—siblings? Cousins? She couldn't be sure. It seemed like a large family.

"Cedric," she asked, catching his attention once he and his parents approached her table to introduce themselves to her mother. "Do you know who that is sitting with Harry?"

Cedric craned his neck to see who she was talking about. "You mean the Weasleys?"

She looked back at them. Bill was currently talking to a little redheaded girl who was hugging him tightly. They seemed happy to see each other.

"Weasleys?"

"Yeah," Cedric continued. "Harry's best mate. Ron Weasley. The one sitting just beside him."

She knew the red-headed boy sitting beside Harry, though she didn't know his name. He'd been the one to help Harry during the second task, resulting in them rescuing her sister from the depths of the lake after she, herself, had been attacked by Grindylows.

"And that's his family. They're a big family," Cedric said with a small laugh. "And that's not even the whole group. Anyway, I've heard Harry spends holidays with them. They don't live far from us." He gestured to him and his parents. "Just over the hill."

That last part caught her attention. She turned and looked straight at him. If he lived near them, he must know them well enough.

"Who is the taller one with the long hair?"

It must have been her tone and the way she'd asked, because Cedric was now throwing her a quick look, seemingly catching on rather quickly as to where she was going with this. It seemed her mother did too, because she was now turning in her seat to see what this was all about.

"That's Bill. He's the oldest."

"How old is oldest?" she asked, trying to make the question sound innocuous.

"I'm not sure," Cedric said. "He was always a good deal older than me. I'd guess at least twenty-five?" He turned to his parents. "How old is Bill Weasley now?"

As he spoke, Fleur's own mother turned rather abruptly and stared at her daughter. Fleur could already tell by her expression that she was ready to say, "Much too old for you. Don't even think about it."

She ignored her.

"Bill Weasley?" said Cedric's father, now also casting a glance in Bill's direction. It made Fleur immediately wish everyone would stop looking at him. "Oh, he's probably twenty-three or twenty-four now, I'd say."

"A lovely boy," said Cedric's mother, who had thrown Fleur an almost knowing sort of look, as if she understood. "Always so well-mannered. And so handsome." She turned to her husband. "He was Head Boy, if I remember correctly."

"He was. Whip smart, that one," said Cedric's father. "He's a curse-breaker for Gringotts now. Very dangerous sort of work, but he's apparently very good at it. Does well for himself. Lives in Egypt."

Fleur felt herself melt a little to the spot. She turned to stare at Bill across the room again, noticing that he was now talking with two twin boys who were laughing at something he'd said. A curse-breaker who lived in Egypt? With that face. That body. That hair. That smile. She'd never been more attracted to anything in her entire life.

In retrospect, that moment had been one of the last normal conversations she'd had before the events of the Tournament that evening. It had actually been the last real conversation she'd had with Cedric—other than a quick good luck that he'd wished her before he'd entered the maze. Bill Weasley was the topic of the last conversation she'd had with him; she couldn't help but play it over and over again in her mind whenever she thought of Cedric's sweet face.

Perhaps it was one of the many reasons she remembered the details of it so specifically. They were simply happy memories of shamelessly watching and being attracted to a mysterious man—something that once felt so normal and innocent; part of the life she'd left behind.

Her parents hadn't understood why she'd wanted to leave France immediately after returning home, but after a year of change and new experiences, she didn't see how she could return to her old life in Marseilles. She'd got a taste of new things and new people, and she wanted to keep going. She wanted new distractions to keep her from thinking about Cedric's dead body as it lay there, cold and rigid—a sight she constantly saw every time she closed her eyes.

Most of all though, things were happening in England—she could feel it. They may not have been good things, but they were things and she felt a part of it somehow. It easily could have been her instead of Cedric that night, and she somehow felt as if she'd been spared for a reason. She felt she owed it to him in some small way to do something to make sure he didn't die in vain.

The problem was, she had no idea what that was or how to even begin. All she knew was that getting back to the U.K. was her first step; her way to reconnect somehow. She could start small, get a job, work on her English, figure things out from there. The one advantage she had at the moment was that she was still fresh in the minds of people due to the tournament. She just needed to parlay that into something more.

She and her parents had made a deal—a gap year spent in England where they would help her pay her rent and let her get the urge out of her system; where she could learn English and hopefully use that to her advantage in the future. If something great happened, then it happened; if it didn't, then she would return home and pursue a proper career in a respectable field in France.

So she moved to England, finding a place to live in the extra space of an older woman who was a friend of their family. The flat was small, but clean and well-cared for; with housing covered, that left her with no other task than to begin her job search for places that were willing to hire a bright and ambitious French girl...who clearly needed work on her English.

Beauxbatons had thankfully provided her with resources to look into, claiming that Madame Maxime—who had abruptly left on unidentified holiday— had connections that would be able to secure her something. After all, she was ultimately talented and hard-working; that was what had got her chosen for the Tournament to begin with. She had top marks and recommendations from all of her professors at school. She was a Triwizard Champion. She should be able to find something easily.

She could still remember checking the list the school had sent her for places worth looking into and names worth contacting. She'd ticked off each one as she sent out resumes to apply for positions. The Ministry of Magic. The Daily Prophet. St. Mungo's Hospital. Gringotts Bank…

That last one gave her pause. She thought immediately of Cedric's father—"'He's a curse breaker for Gringotts…'" and found herself biting her lip as she considered that option. She wasn't sure why the idea of applying there gave her more of a thrill than the other places—he lived in Egypt, after all—but it strangely did.

And when it had come down between two nearly identical jobs that had contacted her in return, one at the Ministry of Magic and the other for Gringotts, she'd be lying if the idea of somehow running into the man of her dreams once more didn't influence her decision to choose Gringotts over the Ministry. It had been a decision up until this day—up until ten minutes ago—she'd been starting to regret given how dull and uninspiring the work was. How boring the people were; how dreary and drafty the office was.

But then she'd seen him. Bill Weasley had walked out of her thoughts and into that tearoom in real time. He'd looked just as she'd remembered him, if not better close up. Even as she sat here musing in this chair minutes later, she still felt as if some part of her were on fire. In the best possible way.

Why was he here? Wasn't he supposed to be in Egypt? She had so many questions, but she'd stupidly walked off before even asking any; before barely speaking to him. She'd only just said hello—it had all happened so fast—but she'd been taken so off guard. She'd only wished she could have been more prepared. Normally, she would have come up with something far more charming and witty to say, but she wouldn't allow herself to be taken by surprise again. Next time, she would be ready. It felt as if the universe was sending her a sign. She'd be stupid not to seize the opportunity.

But she needed a plan.

"I saw the man of my dreams today," Fleur said later that evening, after having joined Daphne after work at the grungy old Leaky Cauldron everyone around here seemed to enjoy so much.

Daphne stared at her. She was a plain girl with a rather dull style and quiet personality, but she was the closest thing Fleur had to a friend here in England; only because she'd recognized her from her time spent at Hogwarts the previous year. Daphne had been in Ravenclaw, which had been the house that often shared their table with her and the Beauxbatons visitors. While Fleur couldn't claim to have ever really spoken much to her while at Hogwarts—she'd had little interest in the Hogwarts students, preferring her own classmates and peers—she immediately recognized her on her first day at Gringotts and gravitated toward her. No one had seemed more initially surprised by this than Daphne, but they'd developed a mostly friendly rapport.

They didn't hang out, however—at least not until today. Given the high Fleur was riding after seeing Bill, she had taken it upon herself to invite herself along with Daphne after hearing her talk of meeting a friend tonight for drinks. The Leaky Cauldron wasn't Fleur's scene at all—she wouldn't have been caught dead in a place like this back in France—but she'd been in England for a month and hadn't made many friends or done anything outside of working. She was keen to do anything.

"The man of your dreams?" Daphne asked, staring at her across the sticky pub table. She seemed surprised to be on the receiving end of such a comment. They didn't often talk like this; their conversations were usually strictly small talk or work focused. "Where? At the bank?"

Fleur smiled at and nodded, deciding then and there that she was going to pretend Daphne was her new best friend for the evening. She needed someone to fill that void in her life. She would have given anything for her actual friends to be here, but seeing as they weren't, Daphne would have to do.

"Yes," Fleur continued. "At the bank." She let herself smile a little dreamily. "'He is, without question, the most handsome man I have ever seen. I have not had the chance to speak to him, but I will."

"Wow," Daphne said, still seemingly finding this exchange surprising, but also clearly feeding off of the energy and grinning herself. "Where did you see him? What department does he work in?"

"I believe," she said slowly. "'He is a curse breaker. That is what I heard."

"Oh," said Daphne, pulling a slight face that Fleur immediately caught. "Well, that's…"

"What is that?"

"They're just an...interesting breed."

Fleur didn't know what that meant. This was often an issue for her considering many English colloquialisms and idioms often were lost in translation. 'Interesting breed' to her conjured up images of dogs, not people. Unless Daphne was comparing curse breakers to dogs, in which case…Oh.

"What is wrong with curse breakers?" she asked.

Daphne immediately shook her head. "I can't claim to have ever spoken to a single one, I've just heard things about them having egos and being a bit full of themselves. That's all. A few of them walk around the bank with their noses way up in the air, you know?"

No. She didn't know. Yet another idiom lost in the translation. Given the rest of her comment though, she felt she at least got the general meaning.

"Well, I do not know if he has his nose in the air, or whatever that means, but I know he is very sexy and I would like to know him better."

"Do you know his name?"

She nodded, again glancing down at the pint glass of brown ale in front of her. She wasn't even sure what it was; when she'd arrived she'd just ordered the same thing Daphne had been drinking. She picked up the glass to examine it, noticing that it looked far foggier than she was used to. She was second guessing if it had been properly cleaned.

"So, what is it?" asked Daphne. "Maybe I know him. It's a small community."

Fleur put her glass back down, dismissing it off to the side and out of the way. "Bill Weasley."

Daphne didn't immediately react, though her lack of reaction almost spoke as much as an actual reaction would. It was clear she knew the name; she was just processing how to proceed.

"You know him?" Fleur asked.

"Well," Daphne said, her eyes on the wall as if she was thinking about something. "Not personally, no. He was quite a few years above me in school—I think he was finishing when I was starting—but I know of his family." She looked back at her. "Everyone does. In fact, when my friend, Penelope—she's the one who's joining us—gets here, you can ask her. She's got plenty of opinions on the Weasleys."

Fleur cocked her eyebrow at her, not entirely understanding what that meant.

"It's hard not to know the Weasleys," Daphne continued. "Because there are loads of them. Something like ten. And I think they're all boys."

Fleur made a face. Ten? Ten boys? That seemed...excessive.

"Oh, no wait!" Daphne said quickly, "there's at least one girl. She's young. She nearly died her first year at school. It was my fifth-year, so just two years ago. I can't believe I almost forgot about that."

"She...?" Fleur wondered if she heard her correctly. "How did she nearly die?"

Daphne sighed. "That is something else you can also ask Penelope about because she dealt with it firsthand. It was awful, really. There was this monster that lived under the school. A basilisk…"

"A what?" Fleur asked, her eyes wide. "You had a basilisk in your school? How does that happen?"

"The details were pretty hushed up," Daphne continued. "I only know what I know from Penny, but it was going around attacking students left and right. It was terrifying. My parents almost pulled me out of school. Luckily it only petrified a few people and no one died this time."

"This time? There was another time?"

"Something like fifty years ago," Daphne said with a nod. "A girl died that time."

"Why did no one take care of this monster before?" she asked. "Are you telling me it was simply left there, or…?"

"Like I said, I don't really know the details. I only know that it happened. People like Penny are lucky to be alive. She was one of the ones petrified. The little Weasley girl, she actually got dragged down into the monster's chambers. After it happened, there was this message in blood all over this wall at school claiming her body would lie down there forever." She sighed. "That was a very strange day. It was a very strange term."

Fleur gaped, horrified. What was wrong with this school? A little girl was nearly killed a few years ago, Cedric was killed, Harry was tortured...And Daphne was talking about it not as some horrific life-altering event, but rather an unsettling anecdote of sorts. Was this normal for them? Because during her entire career at Beauxbatons, nothing even close to this ever happened.

"Monsters living under the school," Fleur said, wrinkling her nose. "Beauxbatons would never."

"Leave it to Hogwarts," Daphne said with a half smile.

"What happened to the little girl?" she asked, now thinking of Bill and how traumatic that must have been for him and his family.

"Oh, she's alive and well," Daphne offered, taking a sip of her beer. "She got out somehow. Rumor has it Harry Potter went down there and saved her, but who knows how true that is. There are always such stories around that boy. It's hard to keep them straight."

Now Fleur found her face contort into complete confusion. Two years ago, Harry would have been, what? Twelve? Was she honestly telling her a twelve-year-old went down there and took care of a basilisk on his own? If that was true, that was...remarkable. It made Harry even more impressive than she'd given him credit for in the tournament, and she was already well beyond impressed with him after what he'd been through. It also made her question the adults in that school...

"Is Harry the only person who handles things at your school?" Fleur asked.

Daphne chuckled a little, as if the question had been a joke, though Fleur had been genuinely asking. But as luck would have it, her attention was suddenly darted away from awful Hogwarts stories to a spot across the room just behind Daphne. It was as if he'd been summoned here simply by speaking of him, but there—walking in through the entrance—was Bill Weasley. He was on his own and headed directly for the bar, where he seemed to recognize another man sitting there. The two started exchanging pleasantries; the first man was gesturing for Bill to have a seat beside him.

"What?" asked Daphne, turning to look at what Fleur was staring at. "What is it?"

"Bill Weasley is here," Fleur said excitedly, running a hand through her hair and sitting up straighter. "Over there in the green. By the wall."

Daphne quickly looked, and actually seemed surprised by something because she let out a long hum of a noise. When she turned back, she let herself exhale slowly. "He's much better looking than I remember him being."

"What do you remember him being?"

Daphne shrugged. "I don't really. That's the point. I was maybe eleven and he was seventeen or eighteen the last time I saw him. He was grown. I wouldn't have even thought twice about him at that age."

Fleur frowned slightly at hearing that. She and Daphne were the same age, but when she spoke like that it cemented that there certainly was an age gap between her and Bill. That made him about twenty-four to her eighteen now, but she honestly didn't see it as that significant of an age gap. In a few years, it would especially be negligible. She didn't care. Hopefully, he didn't either.

"Though," Daphne added, "I do remember hearing the older girls talk about how handsome they thought he was. He was one of those types girls were always talking about."

Fleur grinned. So he was always this handsome; this wasn't some late bloomer story where he came into his looks later in life. That was good to know. There was something to be said about someone who had always been attractive—it definitely shaped their personalities. She could speak to this firsthand, seeing as she also had always been attractive. It molded who she was as a person, and she'd be stupid to think that it hadn't.

She watched as he ordered a drink and looked to be ordering something to eat given he was speaking to the barman and pointing at a menu. She would have thought he was meeting a friend for dinner, but the other man was already well into his meal and had seemed surprised to see him. It seemed as if he'd stumbled upon him.

"He wore his hair shorter at school," Daphne suddenly added, looking away from him at back at Fleur. "It wasn't as long. He's grown it out since. That's really all I remember about him. It's his brothers I could tell you more about, but I don't have to since…"

She suddenly waved at someone, and Fleur turned to see a girl with long, curly blonde hair approaching their table with an apologetic smile on her face. She was already saying something about how she was sorry she was late. She'd got caught up at the Ministry.

"I'll let Penny tell you anything you need to know about the Weasleys," Daphne finished, grinning back at her friend as she settled herself.

The girl, Penelope, slid into the seat next to Daphne, who in turn was now doing proper introductions. Apparently, this girl and Daphne had been in the same house at Hogwarts, that Ravenclaw one, and they'd been friends for ages. She worked at the Ministry, in the Department of...something. Fleur had lost track halfway because she'd become preoccupied watching Bill. She kept silently willing him to look this way.

After fielding a few of the obvious, "You were in the Triwizard Tournament. I saw you in the papers. How awful..." comments, which Fleur was now more than used to and an expert at evading, Penelope seemed to realize that wasn't the best topic of conversation. She instead turned and looked between Daphne and Fleur and asked, "What else have you two been talking about?"

"How your school had a basilisk living underneath it," Fleur said rather bluntly.

Penelope looked at Daphne, and Fleur could immediately recognize in her face the same reaction she had when people brought up the maze and that night of the Tournament. It was something she had no desire to talk about, whatsoever. That was the look of someone who realized they'd had a brush with death, but somehow lived to tell the tale.

"Yes...Hogwarts has had some issues lately."

"I didn't even tell her about Sirius Black breaking in," Daphne mumbled, glancing back at Fleur. "That one happened between the basilisk and the Tournament."

"What is a serious black?" Fleur asked.

"Madman," Daphne offered, lowering her voice as she glanced around. "You-Know-Who's right hand man. He killed an entire group of people over a decade ago and managed to break out of prison to come to Hogwarts. Snuck in one night, even though the whole school was surrounded by dementors." She looked at Penelope. "I hated them."

"We all did," Penelope muttered. "Made for a very cheerful last year of school."

Alright, this was just getting ridiculous. Fleur almost had to laugh. If this was true, her parents would have had her home so quickly at even a sniff at this kind of nonsense. Basilisk. Dementors. Mad killers. Where did it end?

"What did this madman want with Hogwarts?" she asked.

"Harry Potter, apparently," Penelope said.

Fleur let her eyes close briefly before looking away entirely. She shook her head; honestly she should have known. Everything seemed to come back to that boy. Did the rest of them not see this? Because from what she gathered, they did not.

"Had to do with his parents being friends with Black, but then they were the reason You-Know-Who disappeared…" She sighed. "It's a really long story and I don't have the energy to tell it. I only know what I heard from my ex, because his family is really close with Potter. He heard things."

"Speaking of Percy!" said Daphne, sitting up straight and clearly looking for a subject change. "Fleur was asking some questions earlier about the Weasleys, and I figured who better to answer them than you?"

Fleur glanced over toward the bar again, having almost briefly forgotten Bill was sitting there. Whatever he'd ordered had arrived and he was now eating. A part of her felt inclined to go over and speak to him—introduce herself properly—but she didn't want to intrude. She worked better one on one.

"What about them?" Penelope said slowly, glancing over at Fleur. She almost looked as if she wanted to talk about this topic as much as she wanted to talk about being attacked by a basilisk.

"I was telling her how everyone knows who they are, seeing as they're such a large family," Daphne said, turning back to Fleur. "Penny here dated Percy Weasley for…? How long was it?"

"Too long," Penelope said stiffly, before adding, "Two years."

"They broke up after school finished," Daphne said. "It was…" She let herself quickly glance at Penelope, "sudden."

"It was out of nowhere," said Penelope, her face pinched. "One minute things were fine. They were normal. Then the next thing you know, he's gone and become obsessed with his job and he's now too busy for us. Apparently, there's 'just no time' which, looking back, was probably for the better because he'd been acting like a right prat in those last few weeks anyway. He was starting to become a different person."

"Was he?" Daphne asked, which given her tone, Fleur took to mean that the change had been less significant than Penelope assumed. "He was always mostly like that. Ditching you fairly regularly to study and meet with professors at school..."

"This was different," Penelope said. "At school it was…" She shook her head. "It was different, alright? He started forgetting that the rest of the world outside of the Ministry existed. I work at the Ministry, so I can see how one can get sucked in under the right circumstances, but he was completely pulled in. He's a complete Ministry stooge now." She turned toward Daphne. "And it's not just me who's noticed. Last I heard, he doesn't even speak to his family anymore because he's so far off the deep end."

"Really?" Daphne asked, sounding surprised. Fleur watched as the pair of them went back and forth discussing this boy and his allegiance to the Ministry and how it's been destroying his personal relationships. Seeing as she didn't know him, she found it hard to care.

She let herself glance back over at Bill—who was still eating; still chatting—and wondered now if he had an estranged brother who he didn't speak to. She couldn't imagine falling out with Gabrielle under any circumstances, but perhaps that was the difference with having only one sibling versus...ten, was it?

"Anyway," Penelope said, looking back over at Fleur. "Back to your original question. The Weasleys are obnoxious."

Fleur stared at her. That had been rather blunt.

"Percy didn't really get on with any of his siblings as far as I saw," Penelope continued. "It's because he's really, really clever—he was Head Boy, you know? And he's obviously very ambitious. Too ambitious, really, but his siblings are all the opposite. They don't care. They're lazy and annoying. Class clowns who care more about pranks and things like Quidditch instead of anything real."

"Wait, hold on," Daphne said. "I feel like you're only describing the twins. And I honestly wouldn't call them lazy, they just don't seem to care much for—"

"The twins are the worst," Penelope said matter-of-factly, her face flashing with an emotion close to anger. "They used to torment Percy."

"I don't know," Daphne mumbled. "You have to admit that sometimes they're funny,"

Penelope was rolling her eyes. "If you heard the things Percy told me about what they did to him—"

"Yes, but Percy's proven to be a workaholic arsehole, hasn't he? Maybe George and Fred just knew things you didn't?"

Penelope was shaking her head. "No, they are obnoxious little prats who…" She stopped speaking abruptly. "Look, I got rid of those two the day Percy and I split, so I won't waste my time talking about them anymore."

Fleur looked from one girl to the other, having lost the conversation ages ago but feeling the need to cut in. "Who are these boys? These twins?"

"George and Fred Weasley," Daphne said. "Two of the many Weasleys." She looked at Penelope. "Aren't there something like ten of them?"

"There's seven," she muttered, suddenly counting off on her fingers. "There's Percy, then the twins, then Ron, then Ginny, who's the youngest—"

"Ginny!" said Daphne. "That's her name! She's the little one we were talking about earlier."

"She's not that little," Penelope said. "And she's annoying, too. She caught me and Percy snogging in a classroom once when we were still keeping our relationship a secret, and she held that over his head for ages. And Ron's more of the same. He was always being snippy and rude to Percy when he was just trying to offer him some well-needed advice and guidance. If he listened, he might not have always been running off to get into trouble with Potter..."

There was Harry's name again. Fleur had half a mind to hear Penelope's opinions on Harry, for which she would have a few things to say back if they were what she assumed, but Daphne suddenly cut in with, "What about his older brother?"

Penelope's expression—which had previously been sour—suddenly became neutral.

"He has two, but I don't know much about them," Penelope said. "Just what I remember from school. I never saw them or spoke to them while I was with Percy. They live out of the country. There's Charlie, who Percy mentioned having always butted heads with growing up—"

Fleur was starting to detect a common theme here when it came to this Percy and his constant confrontations with his siblings.

"—because they're polar opposites. Their reputations speak for themselves. Percy the academic Head Boy; Charlie the blokey, popular Quidditch star. One was polite and responsible; the other was loud and apparently reckless. There was always that rumor hanging around him that he snuck a dragon into the Forbidden Forest as a pet, though it was a load of tosh. Percy always hated hearing about that."

"He would," Daphne mumbled.

"And what do you know about Bill?" Fleur asked, cutting to the chase. She'd picked up over the course of this conversation that she would take everything Penelope said with a grain of salt, seeing as her perception was clearly tainted by this Percy's opinions.

"Bill?" said Penelope slowly. "Um, Percy never had anything bad to say about Bill."

"Well, that's a first," Daphne said, echoing the words Fleur was thinking.

Penelope even laughed at that. "Well, Bill wasn't like the others. He actually cared about important things. He worked hard. He was respectable and became Head Boy, too. Percy often said he hoped to do as well as Bill when we were working on N.E.W.T.s. He actually seemed to look up to him." She paused for a moment. "And from what I remember, Bill was always likable. Everyone liked him."

"Fleur sure does," Daphne said, gesturing to her. "Says he's the man of her dreams and was asking questions, hence all this Weasley talk."

Penelope stared at her rather curiously. "Really? How do you even know him? He lives in Egypt or something and has for years. Where would you have even seen him?"

"He is sitting over there," Fleur said, pointing toward the bar, which caused Penelope's head practically to swing off her neck at the speed it turned. She immediately gaped, looking rather horrified.

"Why didn't you tell me he's right there!?" Penelope asked. "I've been sitting here calling his family some dreadful things and he's right there!"

"He's across the room," Daphne said. "He couldn't possibly have heard you."

"Still…" Penelope said, her face turning red as she slunk into her seat. Fleur felt that was an overreaction. He clearly hadn't heard her over the noise of the pub, also she'd just said they'd never properly met—despite dating his brother. He probably had no idea who she was. And on a more selfish note, if for some reason he turned in this direction, she had every intention of capturing his attention for herself. Penelope need not worry about that.

All in all, she hadn't learned much more about Bill from these girls that she hadn't already assumed. He was very handsome and always had been; he was clever and well-liked at school; he came from a large family and apparently had an annoying brother he didn't speak to. Outside of the brother, she'd already known all of these things. All it proved was that he was still as perfect as she'd decided he was on day one.

Across the room, the man Bill had been chatting with had stood and looked to be finishing up. He was shaking Bill's hand and clearly leaving, which finally left Bill sitting there on his own.

This seemed like perfect timing. Fleur suddenly stood up, causing Daphne and Penelope—who'd been chatting among themselves—to both look at her. She didn't wait to be asked what she was doing, and instead simply offered, "I am going to go and talk to him."

"To…?" Daphne asked, seemingly confused for a half second before it hit her. "Wait? Bill? You're just going to walk over there and talk to him? But you've never even met him."

Fleur shrugged as if that didn't matter. "I will introduce myself. That is the entire point."

Daphne gaped as if she'd never heard something so wild; Penelope, too, looked a little shocked. "You're just going to walk over and...introduce yourself to a man you don't know? Just like that?"

"Yes," Fleur said, wondering why these girls were acting so strange about it. How did they expect to meet people if they sat back and waited for life to happen? This was why she missed her friends from home. She could already picture them wasting no time in going to introduce themselves and helping her.

"Do I look alright?" she asked, running a hand through her hair.

They both nodded slowly, which prompted Fleur to smile unabashedly. She straightened her robes and considered popping away to freshen up, but before she could finish considering that thought, Bill had also stood and was now wiping his face with a napkin. He discarded it on his empty place once he was done, threw the man behind the bar a quick wave, and was already making his way toward the exit. He was gone, just like that.

She frowned. She'd waited too long and missed her chance. This was twice now, which wasn't like her. She rarely didn't seize an opportunity; she believed in making your own luck. What was wrong with her?

No matter, she thought to herself. Next time. Next time, she would be absolutely ready.